Made in the EU

This excerpt is not
a new opening of the Institute in the realm of poetry, but instead a quote from
the European Council President Herman van Rompuy’s first Haiku anthology,
published last week.

Van Rompuy is an
enigma, little-known to the public. What drives him? He has explained his thinking
to rest on balancing political realism with ethical idealism, a view inspired
by the French Catholic philosopher Jaques Maritain. In short, "no realpolitik
without idealpolitik". Also, he has described his own interpretation of
the school of thought known as personalism
to mean that human beings thrive within social units such as the family or
civil society. Governments should therefore support what he has described as
citizens' auto-organisations: theatres, schools, families andcommunities.
His personal views, however, are not supposed to matter – at the beginning of
his mandate he made it clear that he expresses the collective political views
of the European Council, not those of himself. This has had the effect of impelling
decision-makers to listen very carefully to what he says.

Van Rompuy
represents a type of leadership that is quintessentially Made in the EU. Low-key and civilized, placing weight on quiet
communication and scarce but timely interventions, van Rompuy has dazzled
political commentators. He is an avid listener and an expert at fusing
consensus. For example, when negotiations about how to handle the Greek crisis were
about to descend into complete deadlock in February, he was able to conjure a successful
joint agreement in record time. Van Rompuy was able to do this precisely
because he has focused on informing himself on the opposing viewpoints, rather
than espousing his own. Leadership through consensus rather than bluster and
eloquence may be uninspiring, but it is effective.

A recent debate on
the overlapping functions of Council President van Rompuy and Commission President Barroso has produced a predictable outcome:
Eventually the positions could be
fused, creating a new double-hatted actor with the additional caveat that the
person should be put forward by the political parties contesting the European
Parliament elections. This would give the EU a fully-fledged President, but for
now we’ll go with Herman Van Rompuy. When asked what the profile of an EU President should be, his response was: "There is only one profile - one of
dialogue, unity and action."

Exciting? Perhaps
not, but having a sophisticated and effective consensus-maker at the Council’s
helm is a good start. And I do like his poetry.

Some commentators have remarked the paradox of having an intergovernmentalist as President of the Commission and a federalist - or so - as President of the European Council, the most national of the EU institutions.

This makes me thinking once more of the EU as a balancing act (I think Alberta Sbragia firstly popularized the term).